When I was in my early 20s, I lived in a shared house with some other early 20-somethings. They were all off the beaten in some way, but more or less had their shit together. When I moved in, I certainly did not have my shit together. And I had never lived with other young adults who did.

I had been in the bad habit of leaving my dirty dishes in the sink, as had all of my former cohabitants. But these new roommates did not operate this way. One of them confronted me about it. I apologized, cleaned up my shit, and… repeated the whole behavior.

Again I was confronted. I apologized again, and next came the more important confrontation (paraphrasing, no way I could recall the exact wording): we already talked about this, you know what the expectation is, you just didn’t respect that. Well, that was true. It stung, and maybe it was a bit blunt, but it was inescapably true.

I didn’t even intend to leave my responsibilities for other people to take care of. But I was definitely, knowingly, leaving a mess they’d have to work around. Because I was prioritizing my own time allocation without regard for others.

Anyway, how all of that’s relevant: this township has done this before. It’s implausible that they’re ignorant of it, the second time. Especially as a cohort, where some will have better recall and a stronger inclination to improve than others. That leaves only the possibility that their motive falls within the range of motives for knowingly disregarding an election result, again as a cohort. Maybe I lack imagination, but I think the only reasonable conclusion is corruption.